The impending change in Administrations will invariably include staffing turnovers. Personnel will be departing the federal government, including USDA--but their federal office records are to remain behind.

     That’s the gist of the message that Bette Fugitt provided at a series of “transitional seminars” that the Department recently held in Washington, DC. Fugitt is USDA’s Records Officer in the Office of the Chief Information Officer.

     According to Lula Fogle, a personnel management specialist in the Office of Human Resources Management, USDA conducted the “transitional seminars” as an aid to non-career-status personnel at all grade levels who anticipate leaving the Department during the change in Administrations. The seminars included such topics as “Ethics/Post Employment,” “Financial Disclosure Statements,” “Records Retention,” “Unemployment/Leave,” and “Health/Life/Thrift Savings/Retirement.”

     Fogle said that the seminars were held from December 5-14 for affected personnel based at USDA headquarters offices, plus personnel participating by teleconference from USDA field locations.

     Fugitt addressed the group on the subject of “Records Retention” and later recapped that subject. She said that “federal records” are defined by law as all documentary materials--regardless of physical form--that (1) are made or received by an agency of the U.S. Government under federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business, and (2) are preserved, or appropriate for preservation, as evidence of agency activities or because of the value of the information they contain.

     “Cutting to the chase here,” she explained, “federal records are essentially those documents which protect the legal, financial, and other interests of the federal government and its citizenry; and/or assist Departmental officials--and their successors--to make informed policy and program judgments; and/or provide the information required by Congress and others for oversight of the Department’s activities.”

     “With all that in mind,” she advised, “all correspondence, memos, case files, photographs, maps, motion pictures, tape recordings, data sets, and computer tapes and disks in an employee’s custody need to be measured against that definition--to ascertain whether they qualify as 'federal records’.”

     Fugitt pointed out that the essential qualifying characteristics relate to evidence and information contained in the source document--and not its physical form or format.

     “We federal employees need to keep in mind that official federal records belong to the federal government, not to any individual,” she advised. “Accordingly, unauthorized destruction or removal of official records is illegal and may be the basis for prosecution.”

     Fugitt noted that, in contrast to federal records, “nonrecord materials” and “personal records” may be removed or destroyed by an employee at any time.

     Nonrecord materials include such items as transmittal letters and memoranda, as well as extra reference or convenience copies of documents.

     Personal records include such items as papers accumulated by an employee before entering federal service; private materials in the office that were not created or received in the course of transacting federal business; and work-related personal papers that are not used in the transaction of federal business.

     Fugitt advised that, to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, all personal materials should be maintained separately from official files.

     She also noted that word processing and electronic mail have changed the nature of recordkeeping in the federal government-- and that the aforementioned requirements for retention apply to electronic documents as well.

     “The days of thinking that records are only something you can hold in your hand, like a piece of paper, are long past,” Fugitt advised. “Therefore, our colleagues at USDA need to recognize that when they delete an electronic document, they may be destroying the only copy of that document--so be aware of the ramifications of decisions you make concerning disposition of electronic records.”

     She said that OCIO has created a web site to provide additional guidance on this issue. It is http://www.ocio.usda.gov/irm/records/index.html

     In addition, the National Archives and Records Administration has published a 14-page booklet, titled “Documenting Your Public Service” and dated October 2000, concerning this subject. The February 1997 issue of the USDA News also carried a story on this issue.

     “The great value in archiving federal records,” affirmed Barbara LaCour, chief of OCIO’s Information Management Division, “is they ensure that each of us in the federal government in general--and, of course, also here in USDA--can reconstruct the evolution of our program and administrative decisions without relying on word-of-mouth; they give our successors a written rationale for actions we’ve taken; and they leave an enduring record that reflects the special contributions each of us has made.”

     “So I strongly advise not removing or destroying them--unless you’re sure that you’re legally correct in doing so.”